In a move to empower the people and extend services better with the use of information technology, India is all set for a digital revolution. The corporate honchos have pledged Rs4.5 lakh crore investment, which will bring employment for 18 lakh people in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched the “Digital India Week” as part of the larger initiative to expand high-speed Internet access and offer Government services online.
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries will make an investment of over Rs250,000 crore in the digital space, while younger brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group committed to invest about Rs10,000 crore over the next few years to expand its presence across digital, cloud computing and telecom space.
Besides these two billionaire brothers, other corporate giants such as Bharti Enterprises, Aditya Birla Group, Vedanta Group, Nidec Corporation among the few who have pledged billion of dollars invest to boost the Prime Minister’s ‘Digital India’ initiative.
Reliance Industries’ digital move includes rollout of wireless broadband infrastructure and manufacturing of mobile handsets, said its Chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the grand event held in the capital on Wednesday.
Speaking at the launch of Digital India Week here, Ambani, whose $16 billion Reliance Jio Infocomm ltd is set to launch telephony and broadband services by December, said the firm’s investments in digital space will create employment for over 5 lakh people.
“We at Reliance will invest over Rs250,000 crore across the Digital India pillars. Infrastructure for all-IP next-generation, wireless broadband infrastructure across all the 29 states in India is being laid. This will be amongst the best in the world,” Mukesh said.
“Jio is also setting up a new nationwide distribution network that will enable over 150,000 small electronic retailers to sell and service smartphones and Internet devices,” he said, adding that Jio is working with leading device manufacturers encouraging them to make smartphones and Internet devices in India at an affordable price and the company will give them an assured offtake through our retail system.
Billionaire Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group also committed to invest about Rs10,000 crore over the next a few years to expand its presence across digital, cloud computing and telecom space. “We have committed to invest nearly Rs10,000 crore over the next few years to fund these transformational initiatives across the digital, cloud and telecom space,” its Chairman Anil Ambani said.
“Reliance Group, which already has India’s fourth largest telecom company in Reliance Communication, plans to achieve full deployment of next generation content and Cloud Delivery Network by the year end,” Anil said.
“The five fully operational Cloud Xchange points can help the Government departments access 240 times the amount of compute power currently available in Government data centres, and over 6 times the high speed storage currently available in India”, Anil added.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel also committed to invest more than Rs1 lakh crore or about $16 billion in next five years in technology space. “We will make a very meaningful contribution to your initiative of ‘Digital India’. We commit to spend in excess of Rs 100 thousand crore (about $16 billion) over next five years,” Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said while speaking at the launch of the event.
“The amount will be spent to build further and deeper infrastructure like taking 4G connectivity to the masses, e-health and taking e-education to every village,” Mittal added.
Supporting the Digital initiative, world’s largest software maker Microsoft Corp also said it will help the Government in efforts to “transform” the country through technological innovations. In a video message on the occasion, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “Technology can support the Government’s initiatives in key areas of the programme including rural internet connectivity, digital cloud services for all and communications and productivity services for the Government.”
“At Microsoft, our focus is on empowering every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. likewise, the Digital India initiative is focused on harnessing the power of technology to help India transform,” he said.
Aditya Birla Group said the company would invest more than $2 billion in Digital India projects and $7 billion in next 5 years in network rollout and infra and digital space.
“We will invest more than $2 billion in Digital India projects and we are looking at investing $7 billion in next 5 years in network rollout and infra and digital space,” said Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.
However, Vedanta Group and Nidec Corporations both pledged Rs 40,000 crore Rs 6000 crore ($1 billion) respectively for the initiative.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal, who heads the mining giant Vedanta Resources Plc, said, “I am very excited about the Digital India programme. This is one thing which will connect India. It will bring in education, healthcare, the whole urbanisation of villages. It will connect India together. We will spend 40,000 crore to make lCD panels in India.”
While an executive of Nidec Corporation, Mikio Katayama said, “We will invest over Rs6000 crore ($1 billion) in factories in India.”